Now, as then, they warn that “extremes” are on their way. They haven’t got here yet, but they’re coming. They’re always coming.
How many times can you be wrong about a matter of great importance and still be taken seriously and not be fired?
Trick question!
The answer is: you can never be fired for being wrong in the right direction.
The Experts making statements about how dire the climate is have been wrong for decades, and they are still wrong in their sparkling new IPCC Climate Assessment Report 6 released Monday.
The difference between AR6, and ARs 1-5, is not so much in the kind of errors made, for these haven’t changed at all, but in the certainty expressed in them. It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that somebody did a “Find & Replace” of every instance of “very likely” in AR5 and changed them to “virtually certain.”
The rhetoric has been amplified, but the mistakes remain. The Experts who write these reports have never lost any authority for their repeated blunders, nor will they be taken any less than seriously for making them again now.
Because they are always wrong in the direction our rulers want them to be.
Why Not To Trust Experts
Before we come to what that means, I’ll give you the one proof that shows why the climate Experts are wrong.
You don’t need formal training in thermodynamics to follow this proof.
You won’t need to understand the physics of fluid flow. You won’t have to worry about knowing the difference between vorticity and the Coriolis effect. Convective available potential energy can remain a mystery. You won’t even have to know any statistics.
This is good, because the vast majority who opine about global warming also know nothing about these subjects, even as they assure you that their plan to “save” the planet must be implemented.
Baby, It’s Cold & Hot Outside
The proof is this: ever since global cooling was the consensus in the 1970s, which later turned into the consensus of global warming in the late 1980s, which later turned into the consensus of climate change now, all of the predictions have been of doom. The future is bleak, with no sunshine foreseen.
The idea in the 1970s was that man-made pollution from burning fossil fuels was going to knock back the sun’s rays, plunging us into a new ice age.
The atmosphere was going to change because of man. And everything, every system that the atmosphere touched, was going to suffer. All Experts swore that nothing good could come from the change.
In the 1980s, when the temperature began to warm in places, the theory changed, but the predictions of doom did not. Now, burning fossil fuels was going to trap the effects of the sun’s rays, casting us into the flames.
Again, the atmosphere was going to change because of man. Again, everything was going to suffer because of this. Experts said every animal that is cute, photogenic, or delicious was going to die; whereas every beast or plant that bit, stung, or poisoned was going to flourish.
Mountains of “research” was done to “prove” that everything we loved was going to be destroyed, where everything we hated was going to increase. Because of a tenth or so of a degree increase in global mean temperature.
Politics Overtakes Science
My friends, this cannot be. It is impossible that atmospheric change can bring only harm, and cause no good. That Experts insist only evil things can occur is why you can know, without doubt, that they cannot be trusted. Experts, like you, also know that much good can come from a warmer, more carbon-dioxide-rich planet, but the Experts choose to deny these goods because of politics.
Nothing has changed in the new “guidance” from the UN. Only now they scream about a “red alert” instead of an almost red one. Or whatever color they used last time. Now, as then, they warn that “extremes” are on their way. They haven’t got here yet, but they’re coming. They’re always coming.
Or they have got here, but you need to have the kind of specialized training mentioned above to recognize them. I have that training and I don’t, because I disagree with the methods used to “see” these mysterious extremes.
It will take some time to go through the new IPCC report in full. It comes in just shy of 4,000 pages. But for the moment, I can leave you with this. It is a link to a report written by government Experts 19 years ago that asserted with absolute confidence that “within 20” years Britain would be “Siberian,” that mega-droughts, world-wide famine, and even nuclear war would occur.
Because of a tenth or so of a degree increase in global mean temperature.
William Briggs is the co-author, with Douglas Axe and Jay W. Richards, of The Price of Panic: How the Tyranny of Experts Turned a Pandemic into a Catastrophe.
August 15, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular |
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I was at the Australian National University in October 2018, when the largest supercomputer in the Southern Hemisphere began running the simulations that have now been published as the IPCC’s Assessment Report No. 6 (AR6). It’s being touted as the most comprehensive climate change report ever. It is certainly based on a very complex simulation model (CMIP6).
Many are frightened by the official analysis of the model’s results, which claims global warming is unprecedented in more than 2000 years. Yet the same modelling is only claiming the Earth is warming by some fractions of a degree Celsius! Specifically, the claim is that we humans have caused 1.06 °C of the claimed 1.07 °C rise in temperatures since 1850, which is not very much. The real-world temperature trends that I have observed at Australian locations with long temperature records would suggest a much greater rate of temperature rise since 1960, and cooling before that.
Allowing some historical perspective shows that the IPCC is wrong to label the recent temperature changes ‘unprecedented’. They are not unusual in magnitude, direction or rate of change, which should diminish fears that recent climate change is somehow catastrophic.
To understand how climate has varied over much longer periods, over hundreds and thousands of years, various types of proxy records can be assembled derived from the annual rings of long-lived tree species, corals and stalagmites. These types of records provide evidence for periods of time over the past several thousand years (the late Holocene) that were either colder, or experienced similar temperatures, to the present, for example the Little Ice Age (1309 to 1814) and the Medieval Warm Period (985 to 1200), respectively. These records show global temperatures have cycled within a range of up to 1.8 °C over the last thousand years.
Indeed, the empirical evidence, as published in the best peer-reviewed journals, would suggest that there is no reason to be concerned by a 1.5 °C rise in global temperatures over a period of one hundred years – that this is neither unusual in terms of rate nor magnitude. That the latest IPCC report, Assessment Report 6, suggests catastrophe if we cannot contain warming to 1.5 °C is not in accordance with the empirical evidence, but rather a conclusion based entirely on simulation modelling falsely assuming these models can accurately simulate ocean and atmospheric weather systems. There are better tools for generating weather and climate forecasts, specifically artificial neural networks (ANNs) that are a form of artificial intelligence.
Of course, there is nowhere on Earth where the average global temperature can be measured; it is very cold at the poles and rather warmer in the tropics. So, the average global temperature for each year since 1850 could never be a direct ‘observation’, but rather, at best, a statistic calculated from measurements taken at thousands of weather stations across the world. And can it really be accurately calculated to some fractions of a degree Celsius?
AR6, which runs to over 4,000-pages, claims to have accurately quantified everything including confidence ranges for the ‘observation’ of 1.07 °C. Yet I know from scrutinising the datasets used by the IPCC, that the single temperature series inputted for individual locations incorporate ‘adjustments’ by national meteorological services that are rather large. To be clear, even before the maximum and minimum temperature values from individual weather stations are incorporated into HadCRUT5 they are adjusted. A key supporting technical paper (eg. Brohan et al. 2006, Journal of Geophysical Research) clearly states that: ‘HadCRUT only archives single temperature series for particular location and any adjustments made by national meteorological services are unknown.’ So, the idea, that the simulations are based on ‘observation’ with real meaningful ‘uncertainty limits’ is just not true.
According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), which is one of the national meteorological services providing data for HadCRUT, the official remodelled temperatures are an improvement on the actual measurements. This may be so that they better accord with IPCC policy, with the result being a revisionist approach to our climate history. In general they strip the natural cycles within the datasets of actual observations, replacing them with linear trends that accord with IPCC policy.
The BOM’s Blair Trewin, who is one of the 85 ‘drafting authors’ of the Summary for Policy Makers, in 2018 remodelled and published new values for each of the 112 weather stations used to calculate an Australian average over the period 1910 to 2016, so that the overall rate of warming increased by 23 %. Specifically, the linear trend (°C per century) for Australian temperatures had been 1 °C per century as published in 2012 in the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network − Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT) database version 1. Then, just in time for inclusion in this new IPCC report released on Tuesday, all the daily values from each of the 112 weather stations were remodelled and the rate of warming increased to 1.23 °C per century in ACORN-SAT version 2 that was published in 2018. This broadly accords with the increase of 22% in the rate of warming between the 2014 IPCC report (Assessment Report No. 5) which was 0.85 °C (since 1850), and this new report has the rate of warming of 1.07 °C.
Remodelling of the data sets by the national meteorological services generally involves cooling the past, by way of dropping down the values in the first part of the twentieth century. This is easy enough to check for the Australian data because it is possible to download the maximum and minimum values as recorded at the 112 Australian weather stations for each day from the BOM website, and then compare these values with the values as listed in ACORN-SAT version 1 (that I archived some years ago) and ACORN-SAT version 2 that is available at the BOM website. For example, the maximum temperature as recorded at the Darwin weather station was 34.2 °C on 1 January 1910 (this is the very first value listed). This value was changed by Blair Trewin in the creation of ACORN-SAT version 1 to 33.8 °C. He ‘cooled’ this historical observation by a further 1.4 °C in the creation of ACORN-SAT version 2, just in time for inclusion in the values used to calculate a global average temperature for AR6. When an historic value is cooled relative to present temperatures, then an artificial warming trend is created.
I am from northern Australia, I was born in Darwin, so I take a particular interest in its temperature series. I was born there on 26th August 1963. A maximum temperature of 29.6 °C was recorded at the Darwin airport on that day from a mercury thermometer in a Stevenson screen, which was an official recording station using standard equipment. This is also the temperature value shown in ACORN-SAT version 1. This value was dropped down/cooled by 0.8 °C in the creation of ACORN-SAT version 2, by Blair Trewin in 2018. So, the temperature series incorporated into HadCRUT5, which is one of the global temperature datasets used in all the IPCC reports shows the contrived value of 28.8 °C for 26th August 1963, yet the day I was born a value of 29.6 °C was entered into the meteorological observations book for Darwin. In my view, changing the numbers in this way is plain wrong, and certainly not scientific.
The BOM justifies remodelling because of changes to the equipment used to record temperatures and because of the relocation of the weather stations, except that they change the values even when there have been no changes to the equipment or locations. In the case of Darwin, the weather station has been at the airport since February 1941, and an automatic weather station replaced the mercury thermometer on 1 October 1990. For the IPCC report (AR5) published in 2014, the BOM submitted the actual value of 29.6 °C as the maximum temperature for Darwin on 26th August 1963. Yet in November 2018, when the temperatures were submitted for inclusion in the modelling for this latest report (AR6), the contrived value of 28.8 °C was submitted.
The temperature series that are actual observations from weather stations at locations across Australia tend to show cooling to about 1960 and warming since then. This is particularly the case for inland locations from southeast Australia. For example, the actual observations from the weather stations with the longest records in New South Wales were plotted for the period to 1960 and then from 1960 to 2013, for a presentation that I gave to the Sydney Institute in 2014. I calculated an average cooling from the late 1800s to 1960 of minus 1.95 °C, and an average warming of plus 2.48 °C from the 1960s to the present, as shown in Table 1. Yet this new United Nation’s IPCC report claims inevitable catastrophe should the rate of warming exceed 1.5 °C, yet this can be shown to have already occurred at many Australian locations.
This is consistent with the findings in my technical report as published in the international climate science journal Atmospheric Research (volume 166, pages 141-149) in 2015, which shows significant cooling in the maximum temperatures at the Cape Otway and Wilsons Promontory lighthouses, in southeast Australia, from 1921 to 1950. The cooling is more pronounced in temperature records from the farmlands of the Riverina, including at Rutherglen and Deniliquin. To repeat, while temperatures at the lighthouses show cooling from about 1880 to about 1950, they then show quite dramatic warming from at least 1960 to the present. In the Riverina, however, minimum temperatures continued to fall through the 1970s and 1980s because of the expansion of the irrigation schemes. Indeed, the largest dip in the minimum temperature record for Deniliquin occurs just after the Snowy Hydroelectricity scheme came online. This is masked by the remodelled by dropping down/cooling all the minimum temperatures observations at Deniliquin before 1971 by 1.5 °C.
In my correspondence with the Bureau about these adjustments it was explained that irrigation is not natural and therefore there is a need to correct the record through remodelling of the series from these irrigation areas until they show warming consistent with theory. But global warming itself is not natural, if it is essentially driven by human influence, which is a key assumption of current policy. Indeed, there should be something right-up-front in the latest assessment of climate change by the IPCC (AR6) explaining that the individual temperature series have been remodelled before inclusion in the global datasets to ensure a significant human influence on climate in accordance with IPCC policy. These remodelled temperature series are then incorporated into CMIP6 which is so complex it can only be run only a supercomputer that generates so many scenarios for a diversity of climate parameters from sea level to rainfall.
In October 2018, I visited the Australian National University (ANU) to watch CMIP6 at work on the largest supercomputer in the Southern Hemisphere. It was consuming obscene amounts of electricity to run the simulations for this latest IPCC report, and it is also used to generate medium to long range rainfall forecasts for the BOM. The rainfall forecasts from these simulation models even just three months in advance are, however, notoriously unreliable. Yet we are expected to believe rainfall forecasts based on simulations that make projections 100 years in advance, as detailed in AR6.
There are alternative tools for generating temperature and rainfall forecasts. In a series of research papers and book chapters with John Abbot, I have documented how artificial neural networks (ANNs) can be used to mine historical datasets for patterns and from these generate more accurate medium and long-range rainfall and temperature forecast. Our forecasts don’t suggest an impending climate catastrophe, but rather that climate change is cyclical, not linear. Indeed, temperatures change on a daily cycle as the Earth spins on its axis, temperatures change with the seasons because of the tilt of the Earth relative to its orbit around the Sun, and then there are ice ages because of changes in the orbital path of the Earth around the Sun, and so on.
Taking this longer perspective, considering the sun rather than carbon dioxide as a driver of climate change, and inputting real observations rather than remodelled/adjusted temperature values, we find recurrent cycles greater than 1.07 degrees Celsius during the last 2000 years. Our research paper entitled ‘The application of machine learning for evaluating anthropogenic versus natural climate change’, published in GeoResJ in 2017 (volume 14, pages 36-46) shows a series of temperature reconstructions from six geographically distinct regions and gives some graphic illustration of the rate and magnitude of the temperature fluctuations.
ANNs are at the cutting edge of AI technology, with new network configurations and learning algorithms continually being developed. In 2012, when John Abbot and I began using ANNs for rainfall forecasting we choose a time delay neural network (TDNN), which was considered state-of-the-art at that time. The TDNN used a network of perceptrons where connection weights were trained with backpropagation. More recently we have been using General Regression Neural Networks (GRNN), that have no backpropagation component.
A reasonable test of the value of any scientific theory is its utility – its ability to solve some particular problem. There has been an extraordinary investment into climate change over the last three decades, yet it is unclear whether there has been any significant improvement in the skill of weather and climate forecasting. Mainstream climate scientists, and meteorological agencies continue to rely on simulation modelling for their forecasts such as the CMIP6 models used in this latest IPCC report – there could be a better way and we may not have a climate catastrophe.
August 15, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular |
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According to such modern climate experts as Bill Gates, Greta Thunberg, Michael Bloomberg, Mark Carney, Al Gore, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Prince Charles and Klaus Schwab, carbon dioxide must be stopped at all cost. Images of submerged cities, drowning polar bears and burning deserts taking over civilization flash before our eyes repeatedly in schools, mainstream media and films.
The Paris Climate Accords demand that all nations reduce their emissions to pre-industrial levels and the upcoming COP27 Summit in the UK will certainly demand that these reductions be made legally binding and enforceable by new global governance mechanisms.
But is CO2 really the existential threat it is being made out to be?
I would like to take a few moments to entertain the hypothesis that we may be drinking some poisonous Kool-Aid in a modern-day Jonestown cult and we are just minutes away from a hearty “bottoms up”.
While some of the questions and facts you are about to read are considered heretical in certain quarters, I think that history has shown that it is only by permitting the mind to question sacred cows at the risk of being denounced as “heretical” that any creative progress can made. With this thought in mind, I will venture the risk and only ask that you accompany me for this thought experiment with an open mind.
A Preface On Climategate
Back in November 17, 2009, a major scandal erupted when the 61 Mb of emails internally circulated among the directors and researchers at East Anglia University’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) were made public. To this day, it has not been verified if the scandal occurred via an internal leak or a hack, but what was verified throughout the hundreds of emails between director Phil Jones and the teams of climatologists staffing the CRU, was that vast scales of fraud were occurring. Jones himself was caught red handed[1] demanding that data sets be ignored and massaged in order to justify the climate models that had all been used to sell the idea that CO2 was driving startling rates of warming.
East Anglia’s CRU is the world’s foremost center of data set centralization and climate model generation which feed directly into the UN’s Independent Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and which in turn feeds into every major NGO, school, corporation and government. The other central control point of data selection and model generation (for both climate change and covid-19 data sets) is an Oxford-based operation called “Our World In Data”, funded in large measure by the UK government and Bill Gates[2].
Climategate couldn’t have come at a worse time, as the COP15 Climate Summit was scheduled for December 2009 where the world’s first legally binding carbon reduction treaties were expected to finalize an end to sovereign nation states. The terrible publicity of climategate essentially caused the event to become a big goose egg, as Chinese and Indian delegates refused to play along, and ensured that all teeth were removed from any binding carbon caps[1].
In December 2009, former chief economic advisor to Putin, Dr. Andrei Illarionov stated that Russia had sent data to East Anglia’s CRU from 476 meteorological stations covering over 20% of the globe’s surface hosting a wide range of data from as far back as 1865 to 2005.
Dr. Illarionov explained[2] that he was dismayed to see that Phil Jones and the CRU entirely ignored the data from all but 121 stations, and from those stations they did use, they artificially cherry-picked data that gave off the false result that temperatures between 1860-1965 were 0.67 degrees colder than they truly were while temperatures from 1965-2005 were made artificially high.
After being suspended for a few months, a UK review panel absolved Jones from his transgressions and re-installed him into his old position of carbon data gatekeeper at the CRU.
Development Greens The Earth
Many people were taken aback by the findings published by a team of scientists analyzing the results of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. NASA’s website[3] described the findings (published on February 11, 2019[4]) in the following way: “The research team found that global green leaf area has increased by 5 percent since the early 2000s, an area equivalent to all of the Amazon rainforests. At least 25 percent of that gain came in China.”
Up until this study’s publication, scientists were not certain what role human economic activity played in this anomalous greening of the earth.
The NASA study demonstrated that this dramatic rate of greening between 2000-2017 was being driven largely by China and India’s combined efforts at eradicating poverty which involves both reforestation, desert greening efforts (see China’s Move South Water North megaproject[1]), agricultural innovation and also, general industrial growth policies. The later policies represent genuine efforts by Asian nations to wipe out poverty by investments into large scale infrastructure… a practice once used in the west before the days of “post-industrialism” induced a collective insanity of consumerism in the early 1970s.
A perplexed reader might now be heard to ask: but how can industrial growth have anything to do with greening of the planet?
One simple answer is: carbon dioxide.
CO2: An Innocent Victim Framed For Genocide
As children, we are taught that CO2 is an integral part of our ecosystem and that plants love it.
The processes of photosynthesis which evolved over long spans of time with the advent of the chlorophyll molecule eons ago requires constant infusions of carbon dioxide that are broken down along with H2O, releasing oxygen back into the biosphere. Over time, free oxygen slowly formed the earth’s ozone layer and fueled the rise of ever higher life forms that relied on this “plant waste” for life.
Today, large amounts of carbon dioxide is regularly generated by biotic and abiotic activity from living animals, decaying biomass as well as volcanos which constantly emit CO2 and other greenhouse gases. A surprisingly small portion of that naturally occurring CO2 is caused by human economic activity.
Taking the entire composition of so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ together, water vapour makes up 95 percent of the bulk, carbon dioxide makes up 3.6 percent, nitrous oxide (0.9 percent), methane (0.3 percent), and aerosols about 0.07 percent.
Of the sum total of the 3.6 percent carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, approximately 0.9 percent is caused by human activity. To restate this statistic: Human CO2 makes up less than 1 percent of the 3.6 percent of the total ‘greenhouse gases’.
During the mid-20th century, a belief began to emerge among some fringe climate scientists that the 400 parts per million (PPM) average carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the “natural and ideal amount”, such that any upset of this mathematical average would supposedly result in destruction of biodiversity.
These same mathematicians also presumed that the biosphere could be defined as closed systems such that rules of entropy were the natural organizing principles- ignoring the obvious fact that ecosystems are OPEN, connected to oceans of active cosmic radiations from other stars, galaxies, supernova and more while being mediated by nested arrays of electromagnetic fields.
As film maker Adam Curtis demonstrated in his All Watched Over By Machines of Love and Grace (2011)[1], this belief slowly moved from the fringe into mainstream thinking despite the fact that it is simply wrong.
Beyond the facts already presented above, another persuasive piece of evidence can be found in carbon dioxide generators which are commonly purchased by anyone managing a greenhouse[2]. These widely-used generators increase CO2 to amounts as high as 1,500 PPM. What is the effect of such increases? Healthier, happier, greener plants and vegetables.
Temperature And CO2: Who Leads In This Dance?
Amidst the frantic alarms sounding daily over the impending climate emergency threatening the world, we often forget to ask if anyone ever actually proved the claim that CO2 drives the climate?
To begin to answer this question, let’s start with a graph showcasing the rise of human industrial CO2 from 1751-2015 broken down into various regions of the earth. What we can see is consistent increase from the mid 19th century until 1950, when a vast spike of emission rate increases can be viewed. This increase obviously accompanies world population growth and the correlated agro-industrial output.
Next, let us look at the global mean temperature changes from 1880-present.
Here several anomalies strike the thinking mind.
For starters, absolutely no warming accompanies the period of intensive industrial growth of 1940-1977. In fact during this period, many climate scientists were ringing the alarm over an impending ice age![1]
Another anomaly: Since carbon dioxide emissions have increased continuously over the past 20 years, one would expect to see a correlated spike in warming trends. However, this expected correlation is entirely absent between the year 1998 and 2012 when warming tappers off to a near standstill sometimes called “the global warming pause” of 1998-2012[2].
This has been an embarrassment for all modellers whose scare-mongering predictions have fallen to pieces to the point that they can only pretend this pause doesn’t exist. Again, the question must be asked: why would this anomaly appear if CO2 drove temperature?
Let’s take one more anomaly from our temperature records before digging into the hard proof that CO2 does not cause temperature changes: The medieval warming period [see graph].
While certain proven fraudsters like Michael Mann[1] have attempted to erase this warming period from existence with things like the famous “hockey stick” model crafted with the help of East Anglia’s Phil Jones, the fact remains that from 1000-1350 A.D. global mean temperatures were significantly warmer than anything we are currently living through. The Vikings in Greenland had no coal plants or SUVs, and yet mean temperatures were still warmer than today by a long shot. Why?
Perhaps taking a wider look at the CO2:climate correlation might give us a better idea of what is actually happening.
Below we can see a chart taking 600,000 years of data into account. It is certainly the case that CO2 and temperature have a connection on these scales… but correlation is not causation, and as the author of How to Lie with Statistics[1] famously stated “a well-wrapped statistic is better than Hitler’s Big Lie; it misleads, yet it cannot be pinned on you.”
When a 70,000 year sampling is inspected, we find the sleight of hand fully exposed by observing the peaks and troughs of temperature and CO2. If the later were truly the driving force as the Great Resetters of our day proclaim, then CO2 peaks and troughs would happen before temperature, but the evidence shows us the exact opposite. Let’s look at one more example of an 800 year CO2/temperature lag about 130,000 years ago…
Going back even further into the climate records, it has been revealed that during many of the past ice ages, carbon dioxide had risen up to 800% higher than our current levels, despite the fact that human activity played zero role[1].
A Brief Look At Space Weather
Technically, I could end right now and feel like any honest jury would conclude that CO2 has been falsely framed for murder. But I would like to introduce one more dramatic piece of evidence that gets us back on the path of a true science of climate change and ecosystems management: Astroclimatology.
The fact that the earth is but one of a multitude of spherical bodies in space speedily revolving around an incredibly active sun within the outskirts of a galaxy within a broader cluster of galaxies is often ignored by many computer modelling statisticians for a very simple reason. Anyone who has been conditioned to look at the universe through a filter of linear computer models is obsessed with control, and is incredibly uncomfortable with the unknown.
The amount of actual factors shaping the weather, ice ages, and volcanism are so complex, vast and mostly undiscovered that computer modellers would prefer to simply pretend they don’t exist… or if they do acknowledge such celestial phenomena to have any function in climate change, it is often dismissed as “negligible”.
Despite this culture of laziness and dishonesty, the question is worth asking: WHY does evidence of climate change occur across so many other planets and moons of our solar system? Ice caps on Mars melt periodically[2] and have been melting at faster rates in recent years. Why is this happening? Could the sun’s coronal mass ejections, solar wind, or electromagnetic field be affecting climate change within the solar system as one unifying process?
Often Venus with its atmosphere of 96.5 percent CO2 is used as a warning for people on the earth what sort of terrible oven we will create by producing more CO2. It is hot after all with temperatures averaging 467 degrees Celsius (872 degrees Fahrenheit). However, if CO2 were truly to blame for the heating, then why is Mars so cold with temperatures averaging minus 125 degrees Celsius (-195 degrees Fahrenheit) despite the fact that it’s atmosphere is 95 percent CO2?
Similarly, what role does cosmic radiation play in driving climate change? Based on the recent discoveries of Heinrich Svensmark and his team in Denmark, strong correlations were found linking cloud formation, climate and cosmic radiation flux over time.
Cosmic radiation flux into the earth is a continuous process mediated by the earth’s magnetic field as well as the oscillating magnetic field of the sun which shapes the entire solar system as we revolve around the galactic center of the Milky Way every 225-250 million years. Svensmark’s discovery was outlined beautifully in the 2011 documentary The Cloud Mystery.[1]
A Return To A True Science Of Climate
The point to re-emphasize is that the weather is, and always has been, a complex process shaped by galactic forces that have driven a miraculous system of life on the earth over hundreds of millions of years.
During this time amounting to approximately two revolutions around the galactic center, living matter has transformed from relatively boring (high entropy) single celled organisms, through a continuous process of increased complexity, and increased power of self-direction (low entropy). Up until now, there is no actual evidence that this process is a closed system and as such, that any fixed state of no change/heat death is controlling its behavior.
While some might deny this claim, citing the redshifts of galaxies as proof that the universe is in fact dying (or inversely had a starting point “in time” 13.6 billion years ago before there was nothing), I refer you to the work of Halton Arp[1].
This process has been characterized by non-linear discontinuities of living matter emerging where only nonliving matter previously existed, followed later by conscious life having appeared where only non-conscious life had been found and most recently self-conscious life endowed with creative reason appearing onto the scene. While this process has been punctuated by sometimes violent mass-extinction cycles, the overall direction of life has not been shaped by randomness, chance or chaos, but rather improvement, perfectibility and harmony.
When humanity appeared onto the scene, a new phenomenon began expressing itself in a form which the great Russian academician Vladimir Vernadsky (1863-1945) described as the Noosphere (as opposed to the lithosphere and biosphere). Vernadsky understood this new geological force to be driven by human creative reason, and devoted his life to teaching the world that the law of humanity must accord with the law of nature stating:
“The noösphere is a new geological phenomenon on our planet. In it, for the first time, man becomes a large-scale geological force. He can, and must, rebuild the province of his life by his work and thought, rebuild it radically in comparison with the past. Wider and wider creative possibilities open before him. It may be that the generation of our grandchildren will approach their blossoming”.[1]
In Vernadsky’s mind, neither the noosphere, nor the biosphere obeyed a law of mathematical equilibrium or statis, but was rather governed by an asymmetrical harmony and progress from lower to higher states of organization. It was only by coming to understand the principles of nature that mankind became morally and intellectually fit to improve upon nature by turning deserts green, harnessing the power of the atom or applying scientific progress to health and agriculture.
Some of his most important insights were published in his Scientific Thought as a Planetary Phenomena (1938), Evolution of Species and Living Matter (1928) Some Words About the Noosphere (1943), and The Transition of the Biosphere to the Noosphere (1938).[2]
Despite the lasting contributions made by Vernadsky to human knowledge, here we sit, 76 years after the end of WW2 tolerating an unscientific policy of mass decarbonization which threatens to radically undermine civilization for countless generations.
Is this change being forced upon humanity? Unlike the forces of fascism and imperialism of the past, today’s terrible self-implosion of civilization is occurring via the consent of those intended to perish under a Great Reset via the collective guilt for the crime of simply being human. It has become the norm for the majority of today’s children to think of themselves as belonging not to a beautiful species made in the image of a Creator, but rather to a parasitic race guilty for the crime of sinning against nature.
So let’s take this opportunity to re-introduce truth back into climate science, and let the social engineers drooling over a Great Reset scream and whine as nations choose a new open system paradigm of life and anti-entropy rather than a closed system world of decay and heat death.
This positive new paradigm of cooperation, scientific and technological progress, and cultural optimism is getting stronger by the day led by Russia, China and other nations joining the international New Silk Road. Most importantly, let’s finally absolve CO2 of its accused sins, and celebrate this wonderful little molecule as our friend and ally.
About ther author: Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , a BRI Expert on Tactical talk, and Senior Fellow at the American University in Moscow. He is author of the‘Untold History of Canada’ book series, and Clash of the Two Americas. In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation .
August 15, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular |
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Patient comprehension is a critical part of meeting medical ethics standards of informed consent in study designs.
The aim of the study was to determine if sufficient literature exists to require clinicians to disclose the specific risk that COVID-19 vaccines could worsen disease upon exposure to challenge or circulating virus.
Methods Used To Conduct The Study:
Published literature was reviewed to identify preclinical and clinical evidence that COVID-19 vaccines could worsen disease upon exposure to challenge or circulating virus. Clinical trial protocols for COVID-19 vaccines were reviewed to determine if risks were properly disclosed.
Results Of The Study:
COVID-19 vaccines designed to elicit neutralising antibodies may sensitise vaccine recipients to more severe disease than if they were not vaccinated.
Vaccines for SARS, MERS and RSV have never been approved, and the data generated in the development and testing of these vaccines suggest a serious mechanistic concern: that vaccines designed empirically using the traditional approach (consisting of the unmodified or minimally modified coronavirus viral spike to elicit neutralising antibodies), be they composed of protein, viral vector, DNA or RNA and irrespective of delivery method, may worsen COVID-19 disease via antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE).
This risk is sufficiently obscured in clinical trial protocols and consent forms for ongoing COVID-19 vaccine trials that adequate patient comprehension of this risk is unlikely to occur, obviating truly informed consent by subjects in these trials.
Conclusions Drawn From The Study And Clinical Implications:
The specific and significant COVID-19 risk of ADE should have been and should be prominently and independently disclosed to research subjects currently in vaccine trials, as well as those being recruited for the trials and future patients after vaccine approval, in order to meet the medical ethics standard of patient comprehension for informed consent.
References
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- Huisman W, Martina BE, Rimmelzwaan GF, Gruters RA, Osterhaus AD. Vaccine‐induced enhancement of viral infections. Vaccine. 2009;27:505‐512. – PMC – PubMed
- Boyoglu‐Barnum S, Chirkova T, Anderson LJ. Biology of infection and disease pathogenesis to guide RSV vaccine development. Front Immunol. 2019;10:1675. – PMC – PubMed
- Chen WH, Hotez PJ, Bottazzi ME. Potential for developing a SARS‐CoV receptor‐binding domain (RBD) recombinant protein as a heterologous human vaccine against coronavirus infectious disease (COVID)‐19. Human Vacc Immunother. 2020;16:1239‐1242. – PMC – PubMed
- Jiang S, He Y, Liu S. SARS vaccine development. Emerg Infect Dis. 2005;11:1016‐1020. – PMC – PubMed
- Tseng CT, Sbrana E, Iwata‐Yoshikawa N, et al. Immunization with SARS coronavirus vaccines leads to pulmonary immunopathology on challenge with the SARS virus. PLoS One. 2012;7:e35421. – PMC – PubMed
Conflict of interest statement
The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article.
© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
August 14, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular | COVID-19 Vaccine |
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Abrien Aguirre is a board certified occupational therapist who recently went public with his knowledge of working in 3 COVID units in Hawaii, two of them “isolation units.” He states that he works in the largest skilled nursing facility in Oahu, working with the geriatric population.
He was interviewed by a group known as “Hawaii Free Speech News.”
His testimony was recorded at a recent outdoor protest held at the Hawaii State Capitol in Honolulu.
He starts out his testimony by saying that the media is misrepresenting what is happening with hospitalized COVID patients. He states:
The people moved to the COVID unit, didn’t have COVID. They tested positive with the PCR test, but most of them were asymptomatic and only suffering from their pre-existing conditions.
He explains how people with terminal illnesses were put on the COVID death lists, which he says is “complete fraud.”
They rolled out the Moderna mRNA experimental injections at his facility, and he says:
I’ve seen 32 elderly people pass away immediately after taking the Moderna vaccine. None of that is being talked about on the News. It doesn’t fit their narrative.
I’ve seen more people pass away from the vaccine, than I have in COVID units.
He explains that he worked as a “Director of Rehab” in one skilled nursing facility for 5 months, and he saw where the billing department would have his therapist change medical diagnosis codes from things like pulmonary disorder to COVID because of higher reimbursements. And this even happened with cases that were not only asymptomatic, but sometimes they did not even have a positive PCR test result for COVID.
It’s just fraud on every level.
Mr. Aguirre states that he has reached out to politicians to expose this fraud, including the Governor of Hawaii, and their response is silence. Not one of them has responded.
His last advice in the interview:
My advice to people: if your elderly are sick, your grandmother, your great grandmother, your mom, don’t send them to a skilled nursing facility. They’re not going to receive adequate care.
Treatment is going to be withheld from them. They’re going to be forced to wear a mask all day, and social distance.
They’re going to become depressed and want to commit suicide. Because that is what I am seeing in our facilities.
This testimony by Abrien Aguirre is one of the most damning interviews I have ever seen. Everyone should send a copy of this video to their “elected” officials, because the U.S. medical system has now become thoroughly corrupt.
Mr. Aguirre has nothing to gain, and much to lose by going public, putting his career and possibly even his life on the line to go public with this damning information.
Since politicians are complicit with these murders and crimes, it is unlikely that they will do anything about it.
But by exposing their crimes, especially those who claim they are “just doing their jobs,” we can ensure that they will most certainly be held accountable for these murders and crimes against humanity.
There is no place in Hell too hot for where most of these people are going to end up.
This is from our Rumble Channel, and it is also on our Bitchute Channel.
August 14, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular, Video | COVID-19 Vaccine, United States |
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THE NHS has a rather lovely, colourful, ‘easy to read’ form to be handed to people receiving Covid-19 vaccines. It explains in simple language why you should get it, what to expect when you’ve had it and how it will protect you from Covid. You sign your name to indicate that you have read the form, and that you understand and agree that you have given informed consent.
The only side-effects the easy-to-read form mentions are a sore arm, fatigue or headaches. Nowhere does it talk about blood clots that you can develop after the AstraZeneca shot, Bell’s palsy, which is facial paralysis that Pfizer has just added to its list of adverse reactions, or anaphylaxis that you can suffer if you’re allergic to any of the ingredients in any of the shots.
Sight of the form is as rare as a balanced BBC Covid report. According to a straw poll of ten people who suffered serious adverse reactions, none had been asked to sign a consent form, which means informed consent was not given. Most get to read about potential serious side effects only after they’ve received the shot.
One woman, who does not want to be identified but let’s call her Julia, whose pro-vaccine father died after receiving the Pfizer vaccination in January, secretly filmed the ‘informed consent’ process at one of the UK’s biggest vaccine hubs. The 12-minute video, taken at the Greater Manchester Vaccination Centre, shows how little information you can expect before receiving what could be a life-changing jab.
It is no secret now that the AZ can cause vaccine-induced thrombosis (VITT), but official vaccinators say that it’s as rare as being struck by lightning, with a one in four million chance of developing blood clots. We know that the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the body set up to protect us from Big Pharma, has recorded 73 deaths from VITT, with most occurring in the 50-59 age range, although it is still recommended to that group. Only under 40s are advised not to get the AZ jab.
Julia waits in line for 45 minutes to see the triage nurse. During that wait she could have been reading the public information leaflet that she must be given. At the triage booth a nurse tells Julia she is receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine but will not give her the ‘What To Expect After Your Covid-19 Vaccination’ leaflet beforehand. She tells her: ‘Once you’ve had your injection, you’ll be given an information leaflet, the important information is on page 5.’ (This is information about severe headaches, blurred vision, difficulty with speech, drowsiness, seizures and blood clots. All quite important information.)
Anxious, Julia asks about blood clots and side effects and is told: ‘I see thousands a week, half have side effects half don’t.’ The nurse does not say whether these were serious reactions or the 48-hour flu-like symptoms you might expect.
Julia is asked some basic questions about whether she is taking blood thinners, has suffered an allergic reaction to any vaccine or has ever taken part in a vaccine trial, then proceeds to the vaccine booth. The leaflets she would like are piled high, but Julia has to ask three times before she is given one, though she is allowed no time or space to read it. A team leader is called to reassure her. ‘The side effects you have from the AstraZeneca are the same as for the Pfizer and Moderna,’ she says. ‘They’re all the same.’ Wait though, the all-important page 5 contradicts that and says: ‘Not all Covid-19 vaccines are the same – some tend to cause more side effects at the first dose, others cause more side effects at dose two.’ It does not elaborate on which vaccine causes which.
The UK Medical Freedom Alliance (UKMFA), a campaign group that includes health professionals, scientists and lawyers, are outraged and concerned at the lack of informed consent. They have produced a fully referenced letter which says what information you should expect to receive before receiving a vaccination or any medical procedure. They are clear that the courts have decided that informed consent is part of English law, that you should be given information about treatment options available, what they involve and their risks and benefits. You must then base your decision on that advice. Your decision should be voluntary and not influenced by pressure from medical staff, friends or family.
Senior UK lawyer and retired army officer Anna de Buisseret, who is the head of the campaign group Lawyers For Liberty, says the whole thing is a shambles. She said: ‘We have had lots of reports that people are not being given the patient information leaflet that actually contains a lot of warnings about the side effects and what you need to do to ensure you have had a clinical individual risk assessment prior to going along for your injection.
‘The Pfizer leaflet says you should get an allergy test for all the ingredients, including the active one. You cannot be informed of that if you’re given the patient leaflet after you’ve had the injection, which is what is happening all over the place.
‘I went to clinics in my local community and have sufficient evidence that they were not obtaining informed consent from people and that people were dying and being seriously injured by the vaccine.
‘If you are injecting another person with this substance, it is entirely upon you [nurse, doctor or health practitioner] as the individual, because it is personal, civil and criminal liability you’re facing [if it goes wrong], to make sure you have obtained fully informed consent, freely given.
‘The problem is that an awful lot of vaccinators are not obtaining informed consent.
‘We [Lawyers For Liberty] are working with a senior NHS whistle-blower who is a surgeon who trains people in informed consent. I asked him to check the protocols that were being given to the vaccinators. He examined them and he said there was nothing in them about the law and informed consent. It was all about how to administer the injection.
‘Nurses and doctors are not routinely taught about the law or routinely taught about Nuremberg and what happened there. It appears the whole informed consent thing is being pretty roundly ignored.’
De Buisseret has tried, and failed (so far), to get the police to investigate the many Covid crimes she is looking into. She said: ‘The Covid response has not been legal, lawful, ethical or moral. So many different laws are being broken us lawyers are absolutely gobsmacked at the number being trashed. Nobody seems to care to uphold them. It is a crisis.’
August 13, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular | COVID-19 Vaccine, UK |
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THERE are three Covid-19 vaccines in use in the UK, but none is causing more havoc than the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, now known as the ‘clotshot’ because it can cause vaccine-induced thrombosis (VITT). By July 28, 73 VITT deaths had been reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the body that makes sure new pharmaceuticals are safe. Deadly blood clots are not the only side-effects; there are many more affecting one in 110 people according to official figures. Some last for months and could be permanent even if they aren’t fatal.
Neurological occupational therapist Carla Freitas, 31, who works for the NHS, took part in the original AZ trial and is one of 11 women and men who reacted to the same batch of AstraZeneca Covid vaccine, batch number PV46671, earlier this year. The group are countrywide as it is common practice to distribute a batch to different areas. The PV46671 injured found each other on Twitter so there may be more victims not using social media out there. I talked to seven of them.
All seven received the jab before the MHRA began investigating adverse events reported to the Yellow Card Scheme, not originally flagged up by AstraZeneca. Carla said: ‘I was deemed fit enough to join the Oxford trial after thorough medical examinations. In December 2020, I was told I had been given the placebo and offered the jab once it was available, so I did not hesitate to take it. I was fine after the first injection but two weeks after the second one everything changed. I have been off work for five months since March trying to find solutions to my health problems. The doctors from the AZ trial have been unhelpful.’
BBC food broadcaster Jules Serkin, 63, from Canterbury, whose original tweet alerted the others, was ‘desperate for the vaccine’ but she has also suffered horrific side effects. She said: ‘My doctor agreed my reaction was from the vaccine. I contacted AstraZeneca and I’ve had five emails from them asking if they can contact my GP. I responded yes, of course. They never have.’
This close-knit, previously healthy group, aged from their early 30s to early 60s, have all developed chronic illnesses since vaccination. Some experienced symptoms within minutes of the jab being administered while others received PV46671 as their second jab. And while some are recovering slowly, others are getting worse.
Rachael Matthews, 31, and Claire Hibbs, 48, both developed heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) (blood clots usually caused by the anticoagulant drug heparin, typically used in the treatment of heart attacks but AZ victims seem to develop it despite the fact they are not taking heparin) and have tested positive for the heparin-PF4 antibody.
Other symptoms include heart problems, low blood platelets, palsy, excruciating headaches, insomnia, tinnitus, muscle pain, dizziness, disorientation, inflammatory autoimmune disease, pins and needles in hands, feet and face, fatigue, brain fog, difficulty swallowing, sore eyes and eye problems and stomach pains.
In the patient information leaflet, AZ, who have renamed their jab Vaxzervia, list many of the reactions the group have suffered but Serkin says: ‘Health professionals more often than not deny the connection.’
The leaflet says: ‘In clinical trials there were very rare reports of events associated with inflammation of the nervous system, which may cause numbness, pins and needles, and/or loss of feeling. However, it is not confirmed whether these events were due to the vaccine.
‘Following widespread use of the vaccine there have been extremely rare reports of blood clots in combination with low level of blood platelets. When these blood clots do occur, they may be in unusual locations, e.g. brain, liver, bowel, spleen.’
Both Matthews and Hibbs developed a clot in the portal vein which leads to the liver, while Serkin, Howard Griffiths, 52, and Dave McGuire are suffering numbness and pins and needles.
Despite their symptoms, some of those who reacted to their first dose are under pressure from GPs to have the second. This is inexplicable but one consultant suggested it could be because GP practices receive £25.16 for each double-jabbed person. With an average of 9,000 patients for each practice (although under-16s are not yet eligible for the jab) that could be a maximum £230,000 incentive. Patient health be damned!
Despite the MHRA’s denials – they say most adverse events are coincidental – logic suggests that if someone receives a vaccine that is designed to provoke an immune response and then develops autoimmune disease or other problems with their immune system, the jab should be first in the frame. However alleged vaccine damage seems to be rarely investigated or taken seriously.
Adverse reactions can be caused by a ‘hot lot’, a faulty batch of vaccine with too much of one ingredient. Big Pharma has known this for decades, and this problem was legally accepted in 1992 during an Irish court case involving Kenneth Best, 23. As a four-and-a-half-month-old baby, Kenneth suffered brain damage and seizures after he was given Wellcome’s diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (DTP) vaccine in 1969. The Irish Supreme Court ruled: ‘The documentary evidence surrounding the particular batch out of which the vaccine given to the Plaintiff was taken indicates that it was excessively high in both potency and toxicity.’
It is hard to know if this happened in this case because the MHRA and AstraZeneca have not responded to repeated requests for information. Contacted on July 29, AZ has not responded (even after Oxford University press office contacted them on TCW’s behalf) while in an unsympathetic email the MHRA confirmed that they had not investigated the group’s concerns.
An MHRA spokesperson said: ‘We are sorry to hear of the health problems these people are experiencing. We are not aware of any batch-specific safety issues for the AstraZeneca vaccine. We are also not aware of any issues with individuals involved in Covid-19 vaccine AstraZeneca trials who subsequently received this vaccine outside of the trial but will follow this up with the investigator.’
Meanwhile those in the group who have been advised by medics not to have a second vaccine fear they will become victims of medical apartheid. Adele B, 57, worries that she will be labelled an antivaxxer because she linked her health problems to the jab. She said: ‘I’ve always believed in vaccines so nothing could be further from the truth.’
Serkin, Freitas and Hibbs would like to travel when they feel well enough, but worry they will not be allowed without vaccine passports. Hibbs says: ‘I so want to visit my son in Cyprus, I’m wondering if I should have the second jab just to go.’
Here are the stories of the seven in detail.
CLAIRE HIBBS, 48, works for easyJet, lives in Luton, and is married with two children.
‘I’ve been signed off work now since the end of March. I’m now concerned about returning to work if I’m vulnerable. Devastated with the travel rules that you have to be double vaccinated, and I cannot have the second dose. My son, 18, is in the Army and is moving to Cyprus. I planned to visit regularly, but not with blood clots in my lungs.’
1st jab date: March 31
2nd jab date: Advised not to have second jab
Health issues before the jab: None
Reactions: ‘I began feeling unwell on April 5 and developed blood clots in the vein leading to the liver (portal vein), also in my lungs. I’m suffering constant headaches, muscle, joint and neck pains, constant eye twitching. I’m off balance and have brain fog. Can’t get through the day without falling asleep.’
Tests done: Blood tests but liver scan cancelled due to staff shortages. D-dimer (checks for tiny clots), CT, ultrasound and MRV scans which detect VITT. Positive HIT test. Positive test for portal vein thrombosis. Appointment with gastro team. Official diagnosis: ‘Thrombocytopenia (low blood platelets) and portal vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism (clot in the lung) induced by the AZ vaccine.’
Doctor’s response: ‘No luck with doctors, just keep getting fobbed off, mostly saying it’s stress. I’m feeling very let down.’
Time off work: Unable to work since March
Response from MHRA and AstraZeneca: ‘Filled in a Yellow Card. Acknowledgement but no other response. AZ have emailed me to ask for consent to contact my GP three times. I said yes but they have not contacted the GP.’
RACHAEL MATTHEWS, 31, an accountant from Norfolk, is married with one daughter.
‘I had my vaccine on my daughter’s first birthday at my GP surgery. I was apprehensive because I wanted to try for another baby in the spring. I’d had a complicated pregnancy, had a blood clot in my leg, but I was told I needed to have the jab to keep my daughter safe. Ironically, it nearly killed me which would have left my daughter without a mum. I’m now not well enough to consider having another baby. I’ve been told I was one of the first VITT cases in the UK.’
1st Jab: March 6
2nd Jab: ‘No second jab although I’ve been under pressure to take it.’
Health issues before jab: None, apart from pregnancy-related blood clot.
Reactions: ‘Started a week after the jab with stomach cramps, nausea and diarrhoea, very heavy legs. Struggled with everyday things I felt so weak. Couldn’t sleep, was struggling to walk, stopped being able to lift my daughter. Unable to get on to the doctor’s couch for a routine smear, a nurse insisted I went to A&E. I might have died otherwise. GPs had dismissed my symptoms. Blood clot found in the portal vein to my liver. VITT and HIT.’
Tests done: Two A&E visits, admitted to hospital for six days. Ultrasound, daily blood tests while in hospital. Endoscopy. Tests for HP4 heparin antibodies show HIT still present.
Time off work: ‘I work for my dad’s firm, so I fit in work when I’m well enough.’
GP’s response: ‘I asked about blood clots and was told it was fake news. Went to A&E and was told to take Gaviscon although routine blood tests showed very low blood platelets, around 50. When I was finally diagnosed with a blood clot I kept asking if it was the vaccine and no one would answer me.’
MHRA and AstraZeneca response: None.
HOWARD GRIFFITHS, 52, an events broadcaster for BBC, ITV and Channel 5, unmarried, lives in South Wales
‘I’m not Howard at the moment and I just want Howard back. I feel like my body has been hijacked, I’m desperate to get rid of the hijackers. I have always been highly motivated and full of energy. Before the jab I ran up Pen y Fan (highest peak in south Wales). After the jab I struggled to walk up hill to the shops.’
1st jab date: April 4
2nd jab date: ‘NHS say I cannot have second AZ but want to give me Pfizer.’
Health issues before the jab: None
Reactions: ‘Anaphylaxis. Within three minutes of the jab my lips and mouth became swollen, and I thought I was having a heart attack. My face went red. I have inflammation of the nervous system. I’m left with tingling and numbness in the hands, face, mouth and beneath the nose. Throbbing headache for ten days, changed to mild headaches but have now gone. Insomnia, which I never had before, dizziness, disorientation and fatigue. Tinnitus in left ear, throbbing in back of the neck and brain fog. Slight improvement but not back to normal.’
Tests done: Blood tests which showed low vitamin D. Three visits to GP and one to the hospital.
Time off work: Scaled down work at the beginning of pandemic anyway but would not have been able to carry on as normal
GP’s response: ‘Made no connection with the AZ.’
MHRA and AstraZeneca response: Filled in Yellow Card via phone call directly with MHRA but no contact since. Did not contact AZ.
JULES SERKIN, 63, freelance radio presenter for BBC specialising in food, married with three grown-up children and lives in Canterbury.
‘Too much stress at the moment. All I am doing is bouncing from pillar to post. Different GPs saying different things. Apparently, I’m a complex case.’
1st jab: March 5
2nd jab: Advised not to have second jab
Health issues before the jab: ‘Underactive thyroid. Initially, I was told it was safe to have the jab, but the advice has changed now for people with thyroid issues.’
Reactions: ‘Shivers were the first symptom, I felt like I had full blown flu. I was in bed for two days. Then blood clots came out of my nose for three weeks, I developed sinusitis. I began sleeping a lot, couldn’t look at a screen because my eyes were so sensitive. Developed a pain in my calf and headaches, which I’ve never had, with pains in my temples. Numbness in cheek and pins and needles in feet. Now my left eyelid has started to droop. I’m feeling tearful too.’
Tests done: Positive D-dimer test for blood clots. Blood tests show elevated liver enzymes which suggests liver damage. Ultrasound scan. MRI scan.
Time off work: ‘It’s affected my work for five months. I’ve been working but resting as often as possible.’
GP’s response: ‘You’re having a reaction to the vaccine.’
MHRA and AstraZeneca response: ‘AZ have sent five emails asking if they can contact my GP, but they haven’t yet. Filled in a Yellow Card in May, I’ve had an acknowledgment but that’s it.’
ADELE B, 57, is a retired communications co-ordinator, from Preston, who lives with her partner.
‘I’ve suffered weeks of weird symptoms. I feel it just can’t be coincidence that everything came at once. It also impacts on your family and friends. I feel like my partner is always checking on me. It’s put a cloud over my life. I cannot recall a day since I had the vaccine that I have felt completely well.’
1st jab: March 14
2nd jab: Advised not to have it while taking steroid medication to correct adverse reaction
Health issues before jab: None. Rarely went to the doctor.
Reactions: ‘Immediately after the vaccine I had chills, a sleepless night followed by a day with a headache and five days of feeling fatigued. The following week began with muscle aches and weakness in my shoulders, upper back, thighs and hips. Lack of sleep due to pain and I struggle to stand up after inactivity. These symptoms point to polymyalgia rheumatica (stiffness in neck and shoulders), an inflammatory autoimmune disease. My vision became blurry, and I had floaters in my right eye coupled with feeling disorientated when I sat down. I have heart palpitations, a strange rash behind my knee, dizziness and disorientation. Nerve pain and numbness in face, legs and feet and electric shock type sensations across my body. Health professionals are at a loss for a true diagnosis.’
Tests done: Several doctor’s appointments, seven blood tests, a 111 call, a visit to A&E, referral to rheumatology, referral to neurology, MRI scan of head, neck and spine, chest X-ray, eye examination.
Doctor’s response: ‘My doctor has advised me not to have the second AstraZeneca vaccine. Rheumatologist has indicated that she has seen several people reporting with autoimmune disorders since having their vaccine.’
MHRA and AstraZeneca response: Filled in Yellow Card, had a standard acknowledgement but nothing since. Didn’t contact AZ.
CARLA FREITAS, 31, highly specialist occupational therapist in neurology, neuro-cardiac and neuro-outreach at St George’s University Hospital, south London.
‘I was deemed fit enough to join the phase 1 Oxford Covid vaccine trials last April. I received the placebo and was offered the vaccine in January due to being an NHS worker. In the first few weeks of suffering nasty side effects and not understanding what was happening to my body I was in a very lonely place.’
1st jab: Jan
2nd jab: March 27
Health issues before jab: ‘None, 10-15-mile hikes at the weekend, scuba diving, travelling, you name it . . .’
Reactions: ‘No immediate side effects post second jab but after two weeks everything changed. I began getting headaches in the back of the head and pain in my neck. Stiff neck, pins and needles in my head and neck. Fatigue and short of breath during hikes. I had to stop after every lap when swimming. I tried to carry on as normal but couldn’t.’
Tests done: Four A&E visits and two admissions, one a suspected stroke the other because she couldn’t swallow, suspected VITT and Guillain-Barré syndrome (rapid onset muscle weakness), burning in hands and feet and leg weakness. Fifteen GP appointments, numerous blood tests, MRI of brain and spine, endoscopy, recorded heart rate for 24 hours, neurological physiotherapy, and exercises to help improve balance and reduce dizziness.
Time off work: Five months but hoping to return to work fulltime as feeling much better.
GP’s response: ‘I was told this is all stress and anxiety, in other words, all in my mind. Denial that the vaccine has anything to do with it. Doctors in the clinical trial have been unhelpful.’
MHRA and AstraZeneca response: Not known
DAVE McGUIRE, personal details not given. Dave provided three emails but has not been in contact since.
‘I’ve been talking to my best chum recently who had his first Pfizer jab a few weeks back. He’s now a fully-fledged member of the post vaccine headache world. What on earth is in these vaccines?’
1st jab: details not provided
2nd jab: not known
Health issues before jab: None
Reactions: Constant headaches, dizziness, abnormal heart rate, chest pain, reflux, fatigue, muscle pain and weakness in legs and arms, pins and needles and tingling in my right little finger, nausea, inflammation and stomach pains.
Tests done: Not known
Time off work: ‘Chest pain and muscle aches seem to be waning away and my heart is no longer racing like it used to.’
GP’s response: ‘One was hopeful that from her experience of seeing people with long-lasting effects from other vaccines that these should disappear with time.’
MHRA and AstraZeneca response: Not known
NOTE: By July 28, 24.8million people had received 48.4million doses of the AstraZeneca with one in 110 people reporting adverse reactions to the MHRA’s Yellow Card Scheme. A total of 20.46million have received 34.26million doses of the Pfizer with a reporting rate of one in 208 adverse events. Only 1.3million people have received 1.7million doses of the Moderna and 1 in 110 have reported serious side effects.
August 13, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Timeless or most popular | COVID-19 Vaccine, UK |
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In April and June of 2020 I wrote about something I referred to as LOKIN 20. In a series of articles I was among those in the so called “alternative media” who tried to highlight that lockdowns and other response measures, created by the Coronavirus Act, increased the risks to the most vulnerable.
This was entirely contrary to the rationale we were given for these new laws and subsequent policies. The response was promoted to the public as a “plan” to protect the most vulnerable. It was certainly a plan but increasing, rather than decreasing, the risks appears to have been the objective.
I reported the removal the safeguards put in place following the Shipman Inquiry and Francis Report (Mid Staffs). I pointed to statistical evidence from the Office of National Statistics and the concerns raised, by people like Professor Carl Heneghan and David Spiegelhalter, that a dangerous withdrawal of healthcare was contributing toward unnecessary increased mortality among the most vulnerable.
I am not claiming any great insight or deductive powers. I was just one, among many others, in the inappropriately named alternative media who were reporting the obvious dangers inherent to government policy.
It is important to stress that the increased mortality risk from the policies, rather than COVID 19, was abundantly clear at the time. Many people tried to warn the public but they were widely dismissed and labelled as “COVID deniers.”
A year later a number of mainstream media (MSM) articles have emerged confirming, what appears to have been, a policy that would inevitably maximise the risks to the most vulnerable. As usual, the possibility of deliberate policy intent is never broached in any of these MSM pieces. Their reports uncritically cite statements by politicians and consistently assume that these policies were mistakes and promote the notion that lessons need to be learned.
Speaking in June 2020 about the high risk discharge of 25,000 vulnerable patients into care setting, where they received neither medical care nor adequate social care, the former Health Secretary and chairman of the Health Select Committee, Jeremy Hunt, was unquestioningly reported as saying:
“It seems extraordinary that no one appeared to consider the clinical risk to care homes despite widespread knowledge that the virus could be carried asymptomatically”
Leaving aside the clear scientific proof that there is no such thing as asymptomatic transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the evidence suggests that these were neither mistakes nor failures. Yet all we see from the mainstream media is a free pass for the politicians and a blanket refusal to ever question their deceitful statements.
We face a huge sociopolitical problem. Despite the mountain of historical and contemporaneous evidence that governments can and do intentionally harm us, it seems we are collectively incapable of grasping the reality of democide. We wrongly assume that every policy is intentionally benign.
We must overcome this flawed and naive belief. Until we recognise that there are those within government, and its wider partnership networks, that wish us ill we will remain unable to address the threat they pose to all of us.
The UK government not only created the legislation to enable healthcare providers to increase the risks to the most vulnerable, they fully understood those risks. They had previously identified them in training exercises and had extensively modelled those risks.
Contrary to Hunt’s statement, there were many in the UK government who did “consider the clinical risk to care homes.” When the claimed pandemic arrived, rather than respond to limit and reduce the known dangers, the government, of which Hunt is a leading member, appeared to intentionally exacerbate them.
Section 14 of the Coronavirus Act removed the crucial NHS obligations under the NHS (standards) Framework. The NHS did not have to comply with clause 21(2)(a) and 21(12) of the 2012 Regulations.
The NHS no longer had a duty to assess a patient’s “eligibility for NHS Continuing Healthcare” before discharging them. In addition, no relevant body needed to have any “regard to the National Framework.” It is important to recognise what this meant within the context of a supposed global pandemic.
On 19th March 2020 the HCID group of Public Health England and the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) unanimously agreed to downgrade COVID 19, from a High Consequence Infectious Disease, due to low mortality. The UK government issued instructions to the NHS that they must discharge as many patients as possible on the same day.
With no duty to assess a patient’s continuing healthcare needs, the government set very unsafe assessment criteria and compelled hospitals to discharge them. Unless they were in intensive care, receiving oxygen, on intravenous fluids or imminently close to death, the government decreed:
“Every patient on every general ward should be reviewed on a twice daily board round to determine the following. If the answer to each question is ‘no’, active consideration for discharge to a less acute setting must be made.”
This is worth reiterating. During an allegedly unprecedented health crisis the UK government removed the NHS duty to assess a patient’s health status (and conditions) before discharging them from hospital. They then issued instructions compelling the NHS to discharge as many patients as possible.
The government and the NHS accepted that this would mean discharging patients with an active COVID 19 infection into the community. COVID patients, and people with a range of potentially life threatening conditions, were shipped into care settings where other vulnerable adults, who may not not have had any infection, were supposedly “shielding.”
There is no doubt that untested and COVID 19 positive patients entered the care system via this route. Both during the first and second “waves.” It is entirely reasonable to suspect that this policy, combined with others we are about to discuss, caused the said “waves.”
An August 2020 study by the Queen’s Nursing Institute found the following practices commonly operating in Care Homes during the spring 2020 outbreak. We should note the element of compulsion:
“Having to accept patients from hospitals with unknown Covid-19 status, being told about plans not to resuscitate residents without consulting families, residents or care home staff… 21% of respondents said that their home accepted people discharged from hospital who had tested positive for Covid-19… a substantial number found it difficult to access District Nursing and GP services… 25% in total reporting it somewhat difficult or very difficult during March-May 2020.”
On January 11th 2021, during the alleged second wave, The Care Quality Commission stated:
“These settings are admitting people who are discharged from hospital with a COVID-positive test who will be moving or going back into a care home setting.”
Even a few isolated voices in the mainstream media pointed out what they referred to as culpable neglect. Some of the UK’s leading charities for vulnerable people including the Alzheimer’s Society, Marie Curie, Age UK, Care England and Independent Age contributed toward an open letter to the UK government. Written on 14th April 2020 they highlighted a litany of policy “failures:”
“Instead of being allowed hospital care, to see their loved ones and to have the reassurance that testing allows; and for the staff who care for them to have even the most basic of PPE, they are told they cannot go to hospital, routinely asked to sign Do Not Resuscitate orders.”
The policies operated both by the NHS and the care homes, as a consequence of Coronavirus Act’s “legislative easement,” did not protect the most vulnerable. Rather they maximised their clinical risk. Not just of COVID 19, but of every condition that rendered them vulnerable in the first place.
From the 17th March 2020 the NHS were discharging vulnerable patients into care homes without assessing their “eligibility for healthcare.” On 2nd April 2020 the NHS combined this with instructions that care home residents should not be conveyed to hospital. On the 6th April they issued guidance to GP’s which stated:
“All patients should be triaged remotely… Remote consultations should be used when possible. Consider the use of video consultations when appropriate.”
So called “first wave” mortality peaked on the 11th of April and the UK government published its COVID 19 Action Plan on the 15th April. This seemingly insane policy agenda was deemed “necessary” by the UK state to create “capacity” in the NHS:
“The UK Government with the NHS set out its plans on the 17th March 2020 to free up NHS capacity via rapid discharge into the community and reducing planned care… We can now confirm we will move to institute a policy of testing all residents prior to admission to care homes.”
There was no commitment to improve the situation from the UK government, just a plan to move toward one. We know from the observations of the CQC that they continued these high risk policies during the subsequent virus “waves.” There is no evidence that any of these policies were designed to reduce the risks of the most vulnerable. They all, consistently tended to increase them.
It is not tenable for politicians to now claim that they didn’t know what was happening. They constructed and enabled all of the policies that made this dangerous negligence possible. Nor is it credible to simply blame the medical profession. The widespread use of Hospital Trust gagging orders (non disclosure agreements) was also in place. Doctors who did speak out were disciplined or sacked. This was systemic policy initiative which physicians were expected to abide by.
Once the vulnerable were trapped in abandoned care homes, which were knowingly understaffed, the remaining, unprotected staff were then left to deal with both their own safety fears and the mounting mortality. The government decided this was an opportune moment to suspend all safety inspections in both hospital and care settings. This was supposed to “limit infections,” although every other decision they made appeared to increase them. Yet again, ending inspections raised the mortality risk for the most vulnerable.
At the same time, Do Not Resuscitate (DNAR) notices were being attached to vulnerable people’s care plans, often without their consent or even their knowledge. This coincided with a massive increase in orders for the potentially life ending medication midazolam.
In March 2020 the NHS purchased the equivalent of two years worth of supply. French suppliers were then given regulatory approval by the MHRA to sell additional stock to the NHS. This was then distributed for out of hospital use in the community.
This benzodiazepine (midazolam) is a sedative/anaesthetic that suppresses respiration and the central nervous system (CNS). The British National Formulary (BNF) recommends its use for sedation of anxious or agitated terminally ill patients using a mechanised syringe pump in doses of 30–200 micrograms/kg/hour. It is not recommended for conscious sedation in higher doses due to the following risks:
“CNS (central nervous system) depression; compromised airway; severe respiratory depression.”
Therefore a frail, eight stone (50 kg) adult could receive an initial dose of up to 2.5mg followed by a total incremental dose of another 2.5mg over a 24hr period. The purpose of this would be to ease their anxiety and agitation if they were experiencing the frightening sensation of intense respiratory difficulty.
Midazolam becomes a conscious anaesthetic for use in intensive and palliative care when given in higher doses. The British Association for Palliative Medicine recommend:
“Start with 2.5-5 milligrams – if necessary, increase progressively to 10 milligrams – maintain with 10-60 milligrams / 24h in a syringe pump”
Ten milligrams is twice the BNF recommended dose to ease anxiety (for an 8 stone vulnerable adult.) Therefore it is extremely concerning that NHS Clinical Guideline for Symptom Control for patients with COVID-19 recommended 10mg of Midazolam for patients with “distressing breathlessness at rest.” This risks a rapid deterioration of the symptoms causing them that distress.
Police are still investigating an estimated 15,000 deaths that occurred at Gosport War Memorial Hospital between 1987 and 2001. An inquiry has already found that at least 456 people’s lives were “shortened” through the unwarranted use of unnecessary medication. Many suspect that the true figure is in the thousands. The independent panel into the malpractice at Gosport War Memorial Hospital found:
“There was a disregard for human life and a culture of shortening the lives of a large number of patients by prescribing and administering “dangerous doses” of a hazardous combination of medication not clinically indicated or justified… they were, in effect, put on a terminal care pathway… The risk of using them in combination has been consistently documented in the BNF. In particular, it has long been known that when given together, opioids and midazolam cause enhanced sedation, respiratory depression and lowered blood pressure.”
This report was published in September 2018. In 2020 the NHS treatment guidelines for COVID 19 patients, who were deemed to be “agitated,” was:
“Start with Morphine 20mg and Midazolam 20mg”
This is precisely the mechanical syringe combination used at Gosport War Memorial to “shorten” thousands of peoples lives. There are numerous reasons to suspect that the huge increase in midazolam ordered by the NHS, with the full knowledge of the government, was intended for this purpose.
In April 2020 the Health and Social Care Committee, chaired by Jeremy Hunt, heard submissions from medical professionals as they considered the government response to the global pandemic. In Q377 Dr Luke Evans (MP fror Hinckley and Bosworth) asked then Health Secretary about NHS provisions for “a good death.” This is medical shorthand for assisted dying or euthanasia. Dr Evans (MP) asked:
“The syringe drivers are used to deliver medications such as midazolam and morphine. Do you have any precautions in place to ensure that we have enough of those medications?”
To which Matt Hancock replied:
“Yes. We have a big project to make sure that the global supply chains for those sorts of medications… are clear. In fact, those medicines are made in a relatively small number of factories around the world, so it is a delicate supply chain and we are in contact with the whole supply chain.”
Hancock was clearly referring to the huge midazolam order and MHRA approval of the French supply chain. The UK government had already passed the Coronavirus Act, removing the NHS Framework duties, and had ordered them to discharge patients en masse. The NHS had instructed care homes not to send sick patients to hospital and GP support from the care homes had effectively been withdrawn.
Jeremy Hunt was chairing this discussion. For him to claim two months later that no one had “appeared to consider the clinical risk to care homes” smacks of vile obfuscation. The best we can say about this statement is that he was wrong. We now have the documentation which shows that the clinical risk in care homes was very carefully considered and the withdrawal of care was planned.
In 2016 the UK government ran Exercise Cygnus. The training scenario was prepared by Professor Neil Ferguson and his team at Imperial College London (ICL). It simulated a flu outbreak and was a Command Post Exercise (CPX) designed to test the UK’s pandemic preparedness. Nearly a thousand key officials took part from central and local government departments, the NHS, public health bodies from across UK, as well as local emergency response planners.
Some of the Cygnus Report recommendations were implemented in response to COVID 19 and others not. For example, it recommended legislative easements. The Coronavirus Act certainly eased the legislation surrounding the death registration process and the NHS duty of care. The legal requirements for inquests, post-mortems and cremations were also relaxed.
Exercise Cygnus also highlighted a number of deficiencies. It identified inadequate numbers of critical, general and acute care beds, which the government then proceeded to reduce further; it warned that whole sections of the NHS may have to be shut, which is exactly what the government did during the “pandemic;” it highlighted that the most vulnerable could be denied care, just as they were, and that the health service would have to be set on a war footing just to be able to cope.
These were warnings not policy suggestions. The UK government’s adoption of some of the Cygnus recommendations and determination not to address Gygnus alarms appears to have been their policy response to COVID 19.
COVID 19 healthcare strategies were seemingly set in 2016. The Cygnus scenario, modelled by Ferguson and ICL differed from their COVID 19 “models” only by virtue of being based upon influenza rather than a coronavirus.
Perhaps this explains why Exercise Cygnus was kept secret, reportedly for reasons of “national security.” When the report was released, after being exposed, it was heavily redacted and all the names of the senior officials involved were hidden.
The official explanation for this is that it was just too terrifying for the public to withstand. We might ask, terrifying for whom? Using the media to terrorise the public during the alleged pandemic was recommended by Spi-B (SAGE.)
It is reasonable to assume that many of those redacted names would have been people working for Ferguson’s ICL team and current members of SAGE. If so, this indicates that those involved in planning the response to COVID 19 not only understood what the risks were, they then provided the claimed “scientific” justification for policies which they knew would increase them.
One of the senior officials involved in Cygnus reportedly said:
“These exercises are supposed to prepare government for something like this – but it appears they were aware of the problem but didn’t do much about it.”
Again, we see the assumption that everything must be explained away as error or unfortunate oversight. This stretches credibility beyond breaking point when we understand that Gygnus ultimately produced a plan to deny healthcare during a pandemic. This policy of increasing the risks of the most vulnerable was evidently operating during the first alleged pandemic wave. It also seems likely that it continued beyond that point.
Based upon the Cygnus conclusions, in September 2017, the NHS Surge and Triage briefing paper was made available to senior health and government officials. It discussed something called population triage:
“The purpose of this paper is to provide an update to Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and the Chief Scientific Advisor (CSA) on continuing refinement of the knowledge and understanding behind the potential decision that may be required in a future extreme pandemic influenza scenario to move to a state of population triage across the country..”
Population triage means the potential denial of healthcare:
“The majority of the detail in this paper will not be replicated in any publically available documentation… Difficult decisions will be needed about maintaining patient access to care.. There is significant discussion in the paper about ceasing or changing care to patients in the HRG (Healthcare Resource Croups)… Patients would be assessed on probability of survival rather than clinical need and higher level services would no longer be provided… Total excess death rate would be in excess of 7,806 per week of the peak of the pandemic if all these services were stopped… So in the peak six weeks of a pandemic… 46,836 excess deaths could be expected”
Between 7th March and 8th May 2020, there were 47,243 excess deaths in England and Wales. According to the Cygnus predictions this was slightly higher than the numbers envisaged to result directly from the withdrawal of healthcare. However, nearly all of these deaths were attributed to COVID 19. We should ask where, in the claimed COVID 19 mortality figures, the anticipated deaths from the denial of healthcare are.
In November 2017 a number of English stakeholders also met to discuss the a pandemic briefing paper for Adult Social and Community Care. This too was a product of Exercise Gygnus. Once again the intention was to keep the report secret.
“The majority of the detail in this paper will not be replicated in any publically available documentation… Whilst demand will increase, capacity, which is already under pressure because of recruitment challenges, will also reduce because of staff absences… Adult social care will have an increased role in supporting rapid discharge from hospital.. In a severe pandemic, only those services that are life-critical will be maintained… More patients could be supported by a greater focus on telecare/tele-monitoring.”
It is known, from the reports of the CQC and national charities and other NHS documents cited in this article, that primary healthcare was withdrawn from care settings and the community. The staff shortages identified in 2016 became chronic and then severe during the pandemic. This was entirely predictable and was a known outcome of the track and trace and self isolation polices of the UK government.
The briefing paper spoke about which services could be “reduced or deferred.” Crucially these included assessment of care needs, mobility support, personal care support, maintaining family connections and access to medical treatment.
During the “first wave” approximately 25,000 vulnerable people were discharged into care homes to face the extremely high risk environment created for them by the UK government. At the same time potentially life ending drugs were being liberally prescribed.
This was the COVID 19 policy response and we were told the intention was to “protect the most vulnerable”. All of it was predicted on the assumption that hospital were struggling to cope with the “surge” in COVID 19 patients. According to the UK government, patients needed to be discharged to free up capacity in the NHS.
At the height of the so called first wave, on the 13th of April 2020, the Health Service Journal reported that hospital bed occupancy was at a record low, with 4 times more beds available that usual for the time of year. There were 37,500 available beds.
The HSJ stated that the reason for this spare capacity was the discharge policy operated by NHS at the behest of the government. What they didn’t mention is that these figures show the high risk discharge of the most vulnerable people in our society was entirely unnecessary.
You may not like it but is not “unthinkable” that this was deliberate, coordinated policy designed to increase the mortality statistics. Many have questioned the claimed severity of the alleged pandemic. If you wish to give the impression of a high mortality disease then you need the deaths to back up your claim.
It is feasible that all of these risk heightening factors happened to perfectly coalesce to increase mortality, but is it plausible? A refusal to contemplate the possibility of a intentional act does not rule it out. Only a thorough, truly independent investigation can.
While this system was in operation, the UK government encouraged widespread adoption of the Clap for Carers, often referred to as “clap for the NHS.” During lockdowns, as the whole nation was told to self isolate indoors and avoid all unnecessary congregation, between the 26th March and the 28th May, we were “allowed” to simultaneously congregate on the streets and show our appreciation by clapping, banging pots and pans and ringing bells.
Meanwhile vulnerable people were being discharged into unsafe care homes where access to medical care was withdrawn and essential social care removed. Clapping for this was obscene. The government clearly used this ploy both as a distraction and as propaganda. This does not suggest that doctors, nurses and carers do not deserve our support. Any medical professional or carer who blows the whistle is almost certainly making a career ending decision.
Given the evidence we have discussed, if we consider ourselves to be responsible citizens who live in a democracy, it is unconscionable for us to simply ignore what appears to have been a deliberate and illegal government policy of large scale euthanasia in the UK. We must seek answers from policy makers and malfeasance in office must be prosecuted wherever it is identified.
August 12, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Supremacism, Social Darwinism, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, Exercise Cygnus, UK |
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Whenever one gets into discussions about the decline of America’s ability to positively influence developments around the world a number of issues tend to surface. First is the hubristic claim by successive presidents that the United States is somehow “exceptional” as a polity while also serving as the world’s only superpower and also the anointed Leader of the Free World, whatever that is supposed to mean. Some critics of the status quo also have been willing to look a bit deeper, recognizing that it is the policies being pursued by the White House and Congress that are out of sync with what is actually happening in Asia, Africa and Latin America, being more driven by establishing acceptable narratives than by genuine interests.
The problem starts at the top. One can hardly have a great deal of respect for presidents who appointed neocon or neoliberal ideologues Condoleezza Rice, Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton, Mike Pompeo or current incumbent Tony Blinken as Secretaries of State, but when all is said and done the area where the U.S. fails most egregiously is in the personnel it actually sends overseas. It has far more non-professional ambassadors than any other country in the world. Does the American public know, for example, that fully 44% of American Ambassadors sent overseas under Donald Trump were political appointees, whose sole distinction in many cases is that they contributed large sums of money to the Republican National Committee? Though such individuals can sometimes turn out to be surprisingly effective, many frequently know nothing of the country that they have been assigned to and do not speak the local language. To cite my own experience, in my 21 years as an intelligence officer spent mostly in Europe I did not once work for an ambassador who was a Foreign Service Officer career diplomat and few of the political appointees I knew ever bothered to learn the local language.
Part of the problem is that many U.S. ambassadors do not know what their job consists of. Ambassadors have existed since the time of the ancient Greeks. They were from the beginning granted a special immunity which enabled them to talk to enemy spokesmen to attempt to resolve issues without resort to arms. In the modern context, Ambassadors are sent to reside in foreign capitals to provide some measure of protection for traveling citizens and also to defend other perceived national interests. Ambassadors are not soldiers, nor are they necessarily the parties of government that ultimately make decisions on what to do when dealing with a foreign nation. They are there to provide a mechanism for exchanging views to create a dialogue while at the same time working with foreign governments to avoid conflict, whether over trade or politics. They should be bridge-builders who explain how American politics function, how the American government works, and at the same time educate Americans on how the country they are based in sees the United States.
By all these metrics, the U.S. diplomatic effort has been a failure and, at the end of the day, the United States taxpayer spends astonishing sums of money to support its global representational and security structures that provide little in return, rarely experiencing any notable successes and watching the reputation of the U.S. decline due to sheer ineptness. In my experience, the worst U.S. Ambassadors tend to be academics, which brings us to Michael McFaul, who served as Ambassador to Russia under Barack Obama from 2012-2014.
To be sure, viewing Russia as an enemy is a bipartisan impulse among the Washington political class. The neoconservatives and their neoliberal allies have both long been dreaming of regime change for Moscow, either because it is perceived as a threat or as an unacceptable autocracy. Given that, the appointment of Stanford Academic and Russia expert McFaul as Ambassador was intended to “reset” the bilateral relationship while also pushing the democracy promotion agenda and confronting various aspects of the domestic policies of the Vladimir Putin government that were considered unacceptable, to include the treatment of homosexuals. Pursuing that end, McFaul made a point of openly meeting with the political opposition in Russia. He thereby antagonized the officials in the government that he should have been working with to bring about acceptable change to such an extent that his term of office became untenable and he was an embarrassing failure.
But now McFaul has turned the usual Washington trick, converting failure into personal success. He is a regular go-to guy when Democrats either in Congress or in the White House need expert testimony on Russia and he is reliably a passionate supporter of the largely unsustainable Russiagate tale and all that implies. He is again a tenured professor at Stanford, where another top government failure Condi Rice, she of “mushroom cloud” fame, serves as Director of the Hoover Institution.
McFaul was recently bothered by what he described as an anonymous presumed “Russian troll” attack on twitter which had referred to his failure as Ambassador to Russia. This is how he responded: “I have a job for life at the best university in the world. I live in a giant house in paradise. I make close to a million dollars a year. I have adoring fans on tv and half a million followers on twitter 99% who also admire me. I’m doing just fine without a damn visa from Russia. And I am not afraid to tweet under my own name. I feel sorry for people like you who aren’t brave enough to do so.”
Not surprisingly, McFaul’s message, which was replayed in a number of places on the internet, struck many as a bit over the top, dripping with entitlement and self-esteem coming from someone who had been given an important government job and had only succeeded in making matters worse. He responded to the criticism by tweeting an addendum: “I wrote than[t] message in a private channel. I did not expect it to be published. But it was still a mistake, I apologize. It was arrogant and idiotic. A swarm of Russian trolls was accusing me of failure, and I responded in a most unprofessional way. Explanation, not excuse.”
Well, it’s nice to hear an apology for a change from anyone associated with the United States government, but the point is that McFaul is symptomatic of much of what is wrong in terms of how the White House makes policy impulsively and appoints poorly informed ideologues to implement what has been decided. McFaul is not unique. President Donald Trump certainly set a precedent in providing a whole group of incompetents to support the clueless Mike Pompeo at State, to include Nikki Haley at the United Nations, Rick Grenell in Germany, David Friedman in Israel, and the ubiquitous John Bolton at the National Security Council. It is almost as if in the area of foreign policy, the United States government as it is currently configured is designed to fail.
The solution is obvious. The United States desperately needs a foreign policy that is based on genuine national interests. It needs to stop rewarding political donors and needs also to send people as Ambassadors who are sensitive to the culture and red lines existing in the countries where they are posted. That doesn’t mean approving what others do, but it does mean listening to what they have to say. If one wants to restore America’s credibility and its reputation, examining the McFaul experience in Russia should be an excellent learning tool and taking steps so as not to repeat that failure would be a good place to start.
August 12, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | United States |
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